The number on Mashable’s post about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appearing on Saturday Night Live claimed that 1,333 people “liked” it by 12:15 a.m on January 31. The truth is that the like button was pressed only 384 times, 269 comments were left on Facebook about that post and the link was “shared” 680 times on Facebook walls and pages.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ksablan/5403519435/
I used my RealShare tool to find the real Facebook counts.
I apologize if I’m beating a dead horse here, but I thought it would be helpful to just pull out another example to illustrate how misleading Facebook button counts can be.
- No, I won’t assume that the 680 people who shared the link genuinely liked it.
- Yes, I’d be ignorant to believe all 269 comments were made by people who liked the link.
- No, 269 comments do not equal 269 people.
- Yes, Facebook should change the wording or the count so that the statement about how many people like a particular page is correct.